The shoulders of giants...

As I implied in my first post, I'm not going to expend energy listing every single founding father of rock and roll. Here are a few indelible performances by a few of the best, however...


Woody Guthrie

"This land is your land"



"At my window sad and lonely"
- Billy Bragg & Wilco, from recovered lost lyrics by Woody Guthrie





Robert Johnson

"Crossroads"





Louis Jordan

"Jumpin' At The Jubilee"


"Caldonia"




Ray Charles
- The man who was the bridge between r & b, soul and rock and roll - at his raucous best.
"Mess Around"






Elvis Presley
- He's too obvious as the catalyst for the cultural earthquake that was rock and roll for me to list his classic early work. Below you'll find my favorite song by the truck driver from Tupelo who shares my birthday...

"Suspicious Minds"





Fats Domino

"Ain't that a shame"

The rock canon...yes, damn it, the canon

As if the internet and the offline world it intersects needs another fan-boy favorite music blog. Well that's not what this is, or at least it's not its intent.

Here's the deal: anybody with ears to listen and eyes to see will notice that we live in the midst of a situation of overwhelming musical choices and skull-shattering complexity...and precious little quality. So who the hell am I as a self-appointed "music maven" to help guide my readers to the holy grail of quality music? Good question, and one I've answered before over at:



http://tsmintonblog.blogspot.com/



or to be more precise:

"How to get thousands of hours of free (and legal) music online, with free record guides to boot"
http://tsmintonblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/soundz-t.html

My goal with this new sub-blog of T.S. Minton is to help canonize work which thoughtful critics and astute listeners have recognized and touted over the previous decades of popular music history. Some great work has gotten lost amid the cacophony. My job is to point out music which you might like too, even if you're unaware of it. I'm not here to evangelize for genres I know little about and don't dig much (classical, metal, most country, rap, techno etc. etc.). And I'm not out to become an anal-retentively comprehensive source for every hiccup of rock history.

Instead, I want to showcase You Tube videos of music that is so indescribably hot shit; so melodic and well-crafted and moving; so exciting and protean that if you didn't know about it before this blog, you'll wonder how you lived without it. Of course it will help if we have a few common denominators in terms of taste. If you poke around critic Robert Christgau's A+ list...

http://robertchristgau.com/get_gl.php?g=A%2B

and agree with most of the choices you're familiar with, then this blog will probably be of some use to you. In most cases I won't waste anybody's time with anything less than what I consider an A+ piece of music. You of course may disagree with my individual choices, but here are my standards: a song that is the best of its genre by a superior creator; a mini-masterpiece that you can't get enough of and that enriches you on each re-listening; the musical equivalent of what William Faulkner was getting at when he demanded that literature deal only with "the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice."

Or else I'll point to music so ecstactically joyous that you'll say, "Who gives a shit about critical standards!?!" (Ever figure out what the lyrics to "Jet" by Paul McCartney and Wings mean? Ever care?)

Now let's be clear that I have a few nitpicking points I'll pick with Christgau in future posts, and I don't expect every reader to agree with my choices. I'll count myself a success if I can educate a few readers on a bit on the music that critics like Christgau, for all his considerable pretentions and oft-times wrongheadedness, has turned me on to over the years. In other words, if you didn't know about it before and it becomes an important part of your life, then I'm helping to pass it forward. Please do the same.

Bruce Springsteen - "Radio Nowhere"
- in which Brucie Boy expresses some similar sentiments (regarding the surfeit of choices and dearth of quality)...




I was tryin' to find my way home
But all I heard was a drone
Bouncing off a satellite
Crushin' the last lone American night

This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?

I was spinnin' 'round a dead dial
Just another lost number in a file
Dancin' down a dark hole
Just searchin' for a world with some soul

This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
Is there anybody alive out there?

I just want to hear some rhythm
I just want to hear some rhythm
I just want to hear some rhythm
I just want to hear some rhythm

I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues

This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
Is there anybody alive out there?

[Instrumental]

I was driving through the misty rain
Yeah searchin' for a mystery train
Boppin' through the wild blue
Tryin' to make a connection with you

This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?
Is there anybody alive out there?

I just want to feel some rhythm
I just want to feel some rhythm
I just want to feel your rhythm
I just want to feel your rhythm
I just want to feel your rhythm
I just want to feel your rhythm
I just want to feel your rhythm
I just want to feel your rhythm